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CONTENTS

Editorial

Journal Articl

Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography—The Lives of Others: Body Work, the Production of Difference, and Labor Geographies

ABSTRACTS

Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography—The Lives of Others: Body Work, the Production of Difference, and Labor Geographies by Linda McDowell

Abstract: In this article I address one of the key aspects of feminist arguments about the economy—that is claims about domestic and caring labor and its necessity for capitalism. I address who undertakes caring labor, in what social relations, and in which spaces in Western economies, where deindustrialization and the rise of service-dominated employment have been associated with a transformation in the nature of work and the composition of the workforce. I review the ways in which this contemporary economic and employment change has been theorized by economic sociologists and economic geographers, in particular by labor geographers—that part of the discipline to which I feel the greatest connection—suggesting that changes in what is often termed reproductive labor have been relatively neglected at the expense of a focus on immaterial, high-status employment in knowledge-based economies. Through a historical example, I then illustrate the production of difference between women workers in caring jobs in the United Kingdom, arguing that closer attention to the intersection of embodied social attributes adds to explanations of continuity and change in the labor market as well as revealing a legacy of discrimination.

Abstract: Global production networks (GPN) are organizational platforms through which actors in different regional and national economies compete and cooperate for a greater share of value creation, transformation, and capture through geographically dispersed economic activity. Existing conceptual frameworks on global value chains (GVC) and what we term GPN 1.0 tend to under-theorize the origins and dynamics of these organizational platforms and to overemphasize their governance typologies (e.g., modular, relational, and captive modes in GVC theory) or analytical categories (e.g., power and embeddedness in GPN 1.0). Building on this expanding literature, our article aims to contribute toward the reframing of existing GPN-GVC debates and the development of a more dynamic theory of global production networks that can better explain the emergence of different firm-specific activities, strategic network effects, and territorial outcomes in the global economy. It is part of a wider initiative—GPN 2.0 in short—that seeks to offer novel theoretical insights into why and how the organization and coordination of global production networks varies significantly within and across different industries, sectors, and economies. Taking an actor-centered focus toward theory development, we tackle a significant gap in existing work by systematically conceptualizing the causal drivers of global production networks in terms of their competitive dynamics (optimizing cost-capability ratios, market imperatives, and financial discipline) and risk environments. These capitalist dynamics are theorized as critical independent variables that shape the four main strategies adopted by economic actors in (re)configuring their global production networks and, ultimately, the developmental outcomes in different industries, regions, and countries.

Abstract: This article elaborates on the contested periphery approach and related local models. Some economic geographers argue that the peculiarities of resource peripheries cannot be understood with the help of economic theories designed in economic cores. The contested periphery approach was developed specifically for resource economies and stresses the importance of geographically variable interactions of stakeholder groups that channel broad institutional values (industrialism, regulationism, environmentalism, and aboriginalism) into peripheries. Along with local features, they create local models, and changes in relations occasionally remap the conditions for resource utilization. The contested periphery approach is based on comparisons between large territorial regions, but we argue that this does not provide sufficient tools to recognize the relationally formed heterogeneity of peripheries. Instead, this article focuses on the changing positionalities of local communities. We introduce the concept of positionality switch to highlight the ways abrupt shifts in the direction of relations alter local positionalities. Empirically, we explore two Russian forestry communities in the Finnish-Russian borderland. Cross-border trade connections and the shifting semipermeability of the boundary have greatly influenced the local model and remapped borderland communities. Reestablished timber export in the 1990s began to create a local model shaped by imported forestry technologies and work organization systems. In the 2000s, higher customs duties for wood and deteriorating transportation links cut off both the cross-border and domestic connections leaving the settlements in limbo. The article concludes by arguing that the contested periphery approach and local models should be localized and supplemented with the concepts of positionality and positionality switch as well as contextually relevant concepts because they help to better understand the particularities and specific relations of each local model.

Abstract: Research on intergenerational economic mobility often ignores the geographic context of childhood, including neighborhood quality and local purchasing power. We hypothesize that individual variation in intergenerational mobility is partly attributable to regional and neighborhood conditions—most notably access to high-quality schools. Using restricted Panel Study of Income Dynamics and census data, we find that neighborhood income has roughly half the effect on future earnings as parental income. We estimate that lifetime household income would be $635,000 dollars higher if people born into a bottom-quartile neighborhood would have been raised in a top-quartile neighborhood. When incomes are adjusted to regional purchasing power, these effects become even larger. The neighborhood effect is two-thirds as large as the parental income effect, and the lifetime earnings difference increases to $910,000. We test the robustness of these findings to various assumptions and alternative models, and replicate the basic results using aggregated metropolitan-level statistics of intergenerational income elasticities based on millions of Internal Revenue Service records.